Digital Signature Size in a document

[dbroere]

We've built a form with L/C ES.  The form includes several digital signature fields.  (Applied "Extended features in Adobe Reader" with Acrobat Pro.)

All our digital signers have Government-Issued CAC-cards - issued from the same root CA.

The form size starts at 150KB

When those in my office test the form, it increases in size by 50KB per signature.

I've had users, from other agencies, test the form and seen it increase in size by 800KB per signature!

Everyone is using Acrobat or Acrobat Reader V8 or V9.

I need to minimize the "footprint" of the digital signature so the document doesn't grow too big to be transferred by our e-mail systems.

What should I be looking for that can be affecting the digital Signature size??

[Former Community Member]

When you created the PDF form, was it save as "Static PDF" or "Dynamic PDF"?

In general it is best to use a dynamic XFA PDF in a digital signature solution. This becomes the best choice for workflows that require multiple signatures with a lot of data being added/changed between signatures.  AcroForm and Static XFA PDF represent the document snapshot of the PDF by adding the changed data values as interactive PDF objects. While dynamic XFA PDF adds a flat snapshot of the PDF at the time of signing which is smaller in size.

Regards

Steve

[dbroere]

It's a Dynamic PDF.

What I'm asking is why two signatures. both from a CAC cert, both to an empty document with no other changes, would be so different in size.

Neither signature has been modified with a digital image.

[Former Community Member]

You mentioned that the form has been "extended" for Reader using Acrobat Pro.  To eliminate this as a possible contributing factor, can you test a copy of the form with out it being extended and sign it (multiple times) using Acrobat Pro to see if the file size increase is the same?

What Target Version of Reader did you set for the form (in Designer)?

Can you post a copy of the form?

Regards

Steve